Just for good measure, here’s another example:
Friday night I was doing an OTB gig in Chicago and played Hawthorne’s early Pick-4. I was stupid and let my bankroll dictate what combinations I played rather than vice versa.
I really, really loved Inscript because her older brother freaked out on real dirt, and she was making her first start on the stuff that night in the first leg of the pick-4.
I singled the second leg, which was in and of itself, a bad idea, because nobody in their right mind singles a horse with Brandon Meier up. Still, I used Shaquita, because I figured she’d get a soft lead and have plenty left turning for home. Ansong was the obvious other play despite it being her first time on the dirt thanks to her form and her wet track breeding, but I cut her so I could afford the other legs I wanted.
I went deeper in the next two legs trying to catch a price, but both races produced reasonable winners, each of whom was on my ticket.
Now, because I singled Shaquita in the second leg and didn’t use Ansong, I missed out on the Pick-4, even though I knew full well that Ansong was a huge threat.
However, because the minimum wager was $1 on this Pick-4, I lost, whereas I could have included Ansong in the second leg and spent the same amount of money that fit within my bankroll if Hawthorne offered $0.50 Pick-4s.
They don’t, and I made the decisions based on my handicapping that I thought were best given the way I set myself up for the night.
But at the end of the day, it’s not Hawthorne’s fault that my ticket lost. It’s mine, because I handicapped the races based on what I saw and constructed a ticket that I thought gave me the best chance to win from a risk v. reward perspective, given the seemingly wide-open nature of legs three and four. Now I’ve given you a perfectly legitimate scenario in which I would have hit that bet, and it’s quite clear that all I needed was for Hawthorne to offer $0.50 Pick-4s.
If Hawthorne offered $0.50 Pick-4s, I hit that bet.
http://equibase.com/static/chart/pdf/HAW101609USA.pdf
The logic you’re using would give me free license to blame them for the fact that I didn’t punch the right ticket to win. But you know what? It’s still my fault. Not Hawthorne’s. I’m responsible for constructing the ticket given the circumstances. They’re not responsible for tailoring the circumstances to ensure I construct a winning ticket.